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City of Joburg recommits to seeking alternative energy sources

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The City of Joburg has recommitted to seeking alternative energy sources, besides Eskom, as quickly as it can.

The metro says this will help to ensure that services such as water supply, healthcare and sewage are not affected by the rolling blackouts.

Residents of Bosmont, parts of Riverlea and surrounding areas, have been without electricity since Saturday following an explosion at the Industria power station as a result of the blackouts.

Roodepoort residents have also been affected after cables at their substation were stolen during power cuts.

City of Joburg MMC for Infrastructure, Michael Sun says, “Cables were cut during load shedding. So when you have that kind of damage it inevitably damages the water supply to residents in the area. We cannot sit back and say we cannot do anything. We are looking at rolling projects where we install alternative power supply to the pump stations so that whenever there’s load shedding these pump stations will still be able to function.”

Stage five

Eskom is expected to continue with stage five rolling blackouts on Wednesday. It says it may reduce them to stage four by Thursday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has returned home after cutting short his international trip amid the escalating energy crisis in the country.

Research expert Dr. Sean Muller says that a lack of accountability is the biggest problem affecting the power utility.

This follows ramped-up stages of rolling blackouts, which reached stage six at the weekend.

Muller says that there’s a possibility of sabotage of Eskom’s infrastructure but adds that this is difficult to prove.

“The bigger question is about accountability, because if Eskom can always blame sabotage, even if it’s unproven, they can always blame disgruntled individuals. Then how on earth are we going to have improvement, how do we hold the management of Eskom, or the Board of Eskom accountable, when they’re always allowed to roll out these excuses, and often without any definitive evidence.”

VIDEO: Eskom briefs the media on the current system challenges

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